“If I were pressed, I would admit that she was beautiful, in a dead bride sort of way.”

“I used to ask myself, ‘Sergei, would you rather spend your money on drink or women?’ and thanks to the club, I spend it on both and am called a patron of the arts.”

“Affronts to her reputation pierced her to the heart, though I couldn’t understand why, since she had very little character left to defend.”

“Do you often wonder,” she continued, desperately hoping her questions would win Vasily over, “what might have been had his gaze fallen upon some other miserable wretch? Yes, you would have been destitute, starving in the streets, scraping for your next meal…but even beggars are free.”

“I had lied to myself from the very beginning, deceived myself into believing that I was being fanciful and overly imaginative. Surely such monstrosities only existed in nightmares? Yet I had lived through a nightmare these past months, and that was no dream at all.       I was still fighting against the awful truth, not wanting to give in, searching my mind for a logical explanation—but there was none. And the most horrible realization of all was that I had known, somewhere deep inside, ever since the day I first set eyes on Vladec Salei.       Plague carrier.       Living death.       Drainer of life.       The phrasing did not matter. No euphemism could strike fear into the hearts of men the way that single word could.       Vampire.        And for me, the uninitiated, that single word meant death.”

“Because, my dear Eric, I have tasted the secret knowledge. I know how much to say and when to pull back. I know what to see and not see. And now that I have become whole again, I can never go back. All these things he has given me. Better than my supposed mother and father ever could. For that, I owe him my life and allegiance.”

“I know the consequences, Manon,” Ilyse conceded. “I know the fate you endured might one day be my own. But I refuse to be a prisoner for the rest of my life.”